What Goes Up by Christine Hepperman is about the why and how a night that was one huge mistake came about. It is written in a prose poetry format. I will leave it up to you if you think the actions of the narrator fit the “crime” that started it all. (This is not a Mystery Book, but the narrator does treat the events that she learns of to justify her own actions as if “two wrongs make a right”). Our main character shows you in flashbacks (starting with the morning she wakes up from her event) going from child with her father (and occasionally her mother, who will play a larger roll later in the book), the “crime” committed and the aftermath. It then comes full circle and ends where she started.
The shorter poetry style makes it a bit harder to see the transformation the narrator takes (does she really come to an understanding about what her father did, what her mother did and ultimately what she did) but the tie-in with the mushroom theme is clever, if not sometimes a little heavy-handed. Hepperman gives us how the narrator deals with stress, life and love with comparisons to the nature of mushrooms (she calls a person an Invasive Species and will list names of mushrooms alphabetically to help calm herself).
Geared towards ages 13 and up, the average teen (though would go with a reader who likes stereotypically “girl” stories) will enjoy. I know I would have probably liked it as teen and I was not into “teen coming of age” books then. Give me R.L Stine (the non-Goosebumps), Christopher Pike and Richie Tankersley Cusick (later I think they were Richie Cusick) and even “old school younger mysteries” Encyclopedia Brown, Hardy Boys and Trixie Belden.
As I read this in a reader copy, I would like to see the finished product to see how or if images are used as there are some spots were art looks like it is trying to “come through” to help the story. Of course, illustrations will not be needed, as the text is strong on its own.